CHAPDISC: HBP16, A Very Frosty Christmas

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152765

Siriusly Snapey Susan wrote:
>
> CHAPTER DISCUSSIONS:  Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,
Chapter 16:  A Very Frosty Christmas

Carol:
Thanks for a great summary, SSS, and my apologies for snipping most of
your thought-provoking questions to concentrate on this one in particular:
 
> 6.  When Ron says that DD & his dad are likely to protest that Snape 
> is not really intending to help Draco but is only trying to get 
> information from him, Harry says, "They didn't hear him.  No one's 
> that good an actor, not even Snape."  Contrast this with Snape's 
> statement to Draco:  "Where do you think I would have been all these 
> years, if I had not known how to act?"  It seems to me that this is 
> the crux of the Harry-Snape "problem" and the "problem" for the 
> fandom in trying to figure out Severus Snape.  *Is* he acting?  When 
> is he acting and when is he not?  How good an actor is he?  Is Harry 
> correct that "even Snape" is not that good an actor?

Carol responds:
IMO Snape is definitely an actor, and a very good one, or he couldn't
be a completely different person to DD than he is to the DEs, or to
Harry than he is to Draco, or even to DD than he is to Harry. But
unlike Draco, I take the answer to "Where do you think I would have
been all these years, if I had not known how to act?" to be "dead."
(Draco probably thinks that Snape means Azkaban, but since Snape has
been cleared of all charges, I don't think that's the case. In any
case, Snape wants Draco to think that the acting involves pretending
loyalty to DD; obviously, he can't let Draco know that he's feigning
loyalty to LV if that's the case--and I think it is.)

The question with regard to this conversation is, when is Snape acting
and when is he following natural inclinations that lead to the same
goal (which I take to be finding out whatever he can about Draco's
activities without giving away his true loyalty)? I think that when
Harry says, "Not even Snape is that good an actor," I think he's
referring to Snape's statement that he's trying to help Draco. This
statement I believe to be absolutely true. Neither boy appreciates the
terrible risk that Snape has taken for Draco, putting his life on the
line to protect him and even, should it prove necessary, taking the
burden of committing a terrible deed away from him. Granted, neither
of them knows about the third provision of the vow, but that would
make the misinterpretation greater on both their parts because neither
of them would understand his motive. (Assuming DDM!Snape, of course,
but I've yet to be convinced that either OFH! or ESE!Snape would have
put his life on the line for Draco.) 

To return to the question, IMO, Snape's "acting" here consists of
expressing real concern for Draco, a genuine desire to help him, but
disguising from Draco (and from Harry, though Snape doesn't know it)
exactly what he means by "help." And, yes, absolutely, the grownups
(Lupin, Mr. Weasley, and later DD) are right that he's trying to get
information from Draco, as even Harry has deduced. (So does Draco,
which is why he attempts Occlumency against Snape's "interference.")
His acting can't cover his desire for information, but it can cover
his reasons for wanting it. And apparently, he succeeds in doing so:
Note that Draco calls DD a "stupid old man" for not recognizing Snape
as a double agent whose loyalties, so far as he has any, lie with LV.
(I personally doubt that Draco is a better judge of character than DD,
but we shall see.)

Snape has something like a stage presence from the moment we first see
him up close in SS?PS "The Potions Master." I think that Adult!Snape
has cultivated an image for himself that contrasts dramatically with
nerdy, weedy little Teen!Snape, an image that I would describe as one
part DD (whom we have also seen sweeping out of a room), one part
McGonagall (who can also silence her students simply by walking into a
room), and one part Lucius Malfoy (who embodies a certain arrogance
also seen in members of the Black family, including Bellatrix and the
young Sirius). This image includes cultivated diction, a "silky"
voice, theatrical movements, inscrutable expressions, sarcasm, and
occasional faint sneers. He does not make a show of his many gifts,
including his skill at duelling and the ability to invent spells. Most
of the time, it's difficult to guess what he's thinking. At any rate,
this usually cool, often sarcastic, sometimes dramatic persona has
become habitual to him; he can turn it on for Bellatrix and off again
with Narcissa and remain in control throughout the scene (until the
hand twitch gives him away). Occlumency is another tool, and IMO he
uses it to conceal his thoughts and feelings whenever revealing them
might be dangerous even if the person he's with is not a Legilimens.
He can usually keep even anger under his control, with notable
exceptions relating to MWPP in PoA and OoP and to the death of
Dumbledore in HBP. That he does not lose control in the Occlumency
lessons (until Harry invades the Pensieve) or when Harry uses a verbal
Protego on him in DADA class shows, I think, that he is not out to
*get* Harry but to *teach* him.

With regard to Draco, IMO the concerned teacher/HoH aspect of his
feelings is not feigned. For whatever reason, he cares as much for
Draco as DD does for Harry, not to mention that he knows more than
Draco does about the danger the boy is facing, and it's very
exasperrating to have to deal with a teenager who mistakes this
concern, this fear for his favorite student's safety and his very
soul, for a desire to "steal" that student's "glory." But Snape has to
continue his role as double agent, pretending to be LV's man, trying
to extract information without giving his true loyalties away, hinting
at his own danger without revealing his full danger or the motives
behind it, advising Draco against carelessness and the dangers of
expulsion (which, IMO, would mean death for Draco) without revealing
that the last thing he wants is for Draco to get close enough to DD to
attempt to kill him.

BTW, Snape could perhaps have pushed past Draco's crude and easily
detected attempt at Occlumency, but even if he has the ability (and we
don't know whether he does or not), he could not have done so without
alienating Draco further and arousing his suspicions about Snape's
loyalties. (LV's man wouldn't interfere with Draco's "plan.")

So while I think that, with the exception of Dumbledore, Snape plays
to the way in which each person perceives him, whether that person is
Harry, Draco, Bellatrix, or Narcissa (using additional measures in the
case of LV to shape or reshape that perception), I think that he's
usually playing himself, some aspect of the extremely intelligent and
talented former teenager now able to control others with a look or a
word, suppressing any emotion that will make him look weak, using
everything from his natural Slytherin sympathies to his antipathy for
MWPP to prevent his cover from slipping. And IMO, he has been almost
too successful, so that whenever he does reveal his loyalties, for
example throughout the last chapters of GoF, Harry can't accept them
as genuine.

I'm not saying that Snape doesn't hate Harry, though I don't think it
started out that way (I think he was imparting a valuable lesson and
testing the Harry-as-Dark-Wizard theory at the same time). What I'm
saying is that Snape uses everything, including his own emotions when
he chooses to show them, as a cloak to conceal his loyalties from
everyone except Dumbledore, the only one in the WW who knew where
Snape's loyalties really lie. So, yes, Snape is an actor and a gifted
one who would have been dead once Voldemort was restored if he could
not lie convincingly, concealing his lies through his superb abilities
as an Occlumens. Unfortunately, by the end of HBP, the act is
altogether too convincing.

Alas for Snape unless Dumbledore's will leaves Harry some bottled
memories of his interactions with Snape, including the Prophecy
itself, the best plot device I can think of for answering all our
Snape-related questions.

Carol, wondering who will inherit the Pensieve itself and hoping that
it's Aberforth